Subject: Retail Trade

• We're Not Buying It

  November 24, 2006

• Free Jazz at the Dollar Store

  October 2, 2007

• One Small Step for Billboard, One Giant Debut for the Eagles

  November 7, 2007

• Happy Record Store Day

  April 19, 2008

• Shoplifting -- A Gateway Crime to Extortion?

  July 15, 2008

• It's Debt Collection, Not Extortion

  July 21, 2008

• Uh-Oh, O'Reilly: Racial Discrimination?

  August 7, 2008

• Need Something? Head to Kirby Drive.

  September 15, 2008

• Some Of That Gas Being Refined Near Here Is Going Far, Far Away

  September 17, 2008

• Department Of Bad Timing (Press Release Div.)

  September 18, 2008

• Now Dat's Classy

  September 25, 2008

• Freedom from Choice

  The Food Filling Station's limitations can be liberating

  August 17, 2000

• Jewels and Justice

  David Yurman yanks a local dealer into court over sales

  October 12, 2000

• Best Used CDs

  CD Warehouse

  September 20, 2001

• When Online Got Off Base

  Or: How Mark Cuban would have--and could have?--saved the music biz

  April 11, 2002

• Wal-Mart Turns To Wind Power, A Little

  Wal-Mart is going green in Texas! And we don't just mean the dollars you save every day!! Actually, the company is kinda making a bold move of sorts, teaming up with Duke Energy to get wind power for several of its Texas stores. The two companies announced today that beginning in April, Duke will provide wind energy from its windfarms in west and central Texas directly to Wal-Mart; about 15 percent of the retailer's 360 stores and other facilities here will be linked up at first. "This pa

  November 20, 2008

• A Black Friday Soundtrack

  It's become a tradition. You spend two days cooking, slaving over a hot stove, sweating into the family green bean casserole, making gallons upon gallons of iced tea for assorted loved and loathed ones. But instead of taking the next day off to go comatose and let the fullness subside, what do you do? You wake up the next morning at 3 a.m. to go to your local mall or big-box store to fight people for a cheap plasma television. It's come to be called Black Friday, by shoppers and merchants a

  November 28, 2008

• Don't Work -- It's Cyber Monday!

  Thought the holiday uber-shopping craze was limited to Black Friday? Welcome to Cyber Monday.Admittedly, the day was first a gimmick by Shop.org (they coined the term back in 2005), but over the years, more and more stores have jumped on board and as many as 82% of online retailers are offering special discounts for online purchases today. (Of course, those tricky retailers will mostly likely offer similar discounts for the rest of the holiday season, too.) And there's a rapt audience, some indu

  December 1, 2008

• Winners and Losers

  March 23, 1995

• Circuit City, Don't Let The Doorknob Hit You In The Ass

  So Circuit City is calling it quits, shuttering the remaining 13 stores in the Houston area.Hair Balls had the misfortune of buying the worst TV I have every owned there a couple of years ago. The built-in DVD player broke almost immediately, the picture is weak, the power button has fallen off. Ever since, we have had to deal with painfully justified abuse from Mrs. Hair Balls.So Circuit City, this is all we have to say to you...  -- John Nova Lomax

  January 16, 2009

• Hightower High Broadcast Academy Scores Another Grant

  This past January, when the Houston Press awarded its first-ever MasterMinds Awards to three local groups showing cutting edge creativity and determination, one of the recipients of a $2,000 check from us was the Hightower High School's Broadcast Academy, headed up by Ted Irving, the media academy coordinator. Today Irving announced that the academy has also received a $5,000 Teach Award from Best Buy Co., Inc. "for integrating interactive technology into its classroom curriculum." The grant

  March 6, 2009

• Meiko

  February 5, 2009

• Amy Welch and Jarrett Hallcox

  January 29, 2009

• Park Your Caboose

  January 5, 2006

• No Phishing

  July 27, 2006

• Monsters of Hip

  Five bands' worth of Urban Outfitters employees grace Cardi's stage with shopworn licks and attire

  April 7, 2005

• Poured Out

  With archaic and self-serving laws, reforms don't come easy for the Texas booze industry

  April 7, 2005

• The Next Chef Boyardee

  Wolfgang Puck, creator of Spago in Hollywood, has lost control of his name

  December 9, 2004

• Best Suburban Mall

  September 23, 2004

• Best New Magazine

  September 23, 2004

• Chinese Takeout Is Chinese Takeout

  Shanghai River

  February 5, 2004

• Odd Man In

  Inventor James Dyson lets his freak flag fly

  January 15, 2004

• Hard Sale

  A flood of lawsuits has turned Dillard's into a master of defense

  January 8, 2004

• A Closer Look at Dillard's

  January 8, 2004

• Best Last-Minute Shopping

  Urban Outfitters

  September 25, 2003

• Drastic Unilateral Action

  Universal hopes to JumpSTART flagging CD sales with aggressive price cuts. Who benefits the most?

  September 18, 2003

• Two Cow Garage

  Sunday, July 27

  July 24, 2003

• Best Sole Revival

  Shoe Savers

  September 26, 2002

• Best Camera Store

  Houston Camera Exchange

  September 26, 2002

• Best Fish Market

  Whole Foods Market

  September 26, 2002

• Napster's Spawn

  File-sharing copycats keep free music alive on the Net. The Big Five labels still call it theft.

  January 10, 2002

• Non Mall Shopping Adventures

  Shopping adventures

  November 29, 2001

• Best Wine Store

  Christopher's Wine Warehouse

  September 20, 2001

• Ransom Notes

  Can one man convince millions of people to pay for their "free" music?

  November 9, 2000

• You Say Potato; I Say Pomme de Terre

  Ruggles Grill

  July 20, 2000

• Amplified

  Stolen Axes

  October 14, 1999

• Don't Forget Record Store Day is Saturday

  Well, it looks like the weather gods are laughing at Houston again, and have decided to ring in iFest with a good round of drenching rain. So if you'd prefer to remain indoors, don't forget Saturday is Record Store Day - there's even a Web site. Be a good consumer and help out your neighborhood music merchant, won't you? Here's what they've got going on: Cactus Music (2110 Portsmouth): The mood at Cactus is positively post-coital these days after it got the stamp of approval from none other

  April 17, 2009

• Found Footage Festival

  May 7, 2009

• Ford Honcho Tells Houstonians The Domestic-Car Market Ain't Dead Yet

  Mark Fields, the flashy young head of Ford's Americas division, ran through the many woes of the auto industry before a group of mostly white-haired local car dealers who gathered for a luncheon yesterday at the Galleria Westin Hotel. There were the massive stock dips and job losses, the government takeover of his two biggest domestic rivals. National car sales, he said, have sunk to 1982 levels -- and there was an economic downturn even then. "Just makes you want to jump out of bed every m

  May 29, 2009

• An Exercise In Pain: Six Songs of Radio Phil Collins

  John Seaborn Gray​ Inspired by Seanbaby's wonderful article using Pandora via Phil Collins as musical gaydar, Rocks Off logged on to our Last.fm account to see where a similar journey with the Genesis drummer and noted Texas history buff might take us. After all, it's not really scientific unless you can repeat the results, right? Last.fm is different from Pandora: it doesn't ask for your favorite song, but your favorite artist, after which it will play one song by that artist, and then a bunc

  August 26, 2009